1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic musical synthesizers and more particularly keyboard control systems for generating and modififying musical note information.
2. Description of Prior Art
The development of microprocessors has opened up new vistas in a number of diverse fields. In the area of musical instruments, however, the changes brought about by microprocessors are not nearly so profound as one might expect. The microprocessor has found use in connection with piano-type keyboard synthesizers and also in connection with special purpose electronic musical instruments which are unlike traditional musical instruments. The microprocessor's great ability to store, manipulate and control information has not been successfully applied to traditional musical instruments. Horns, woodwinds, and the traditional stringed instruments have a long and rich heritage. These instruments have existed for thousands of years and the methods of playing these instruments have remained essentially unchanged.
Virtuosos have continually pushed the limits imposed by human physiology and the physical inertia of their traditional instruments in an effort to increase the speed and complexity of the music which they produce. Beginners and experts generally play instruments (e.g. guitars) which differ only in quality and not in basic configuration. This allows complete unhindered transference of skills when one gains experience and switches to a better instrument. Microprocessor-based instruments which can be played with the same fingering as the traditional instruments which they emulate offer a great appeal to those who have already had some experience with traditional instruments and do not wish to discard their skills or learn new ones in order to play a microprocessor-based instruments.
What is needed in order to take full advantage of the benefits of microprocessors in connection with traditional-type musical instruments is an input device which is similar in physical configuration to the finger-operated portions of the traditional instruments. Mere physical similarity, however, is not enough to fully realize the benefits. Additionally, the microprocessor-based instrument must be able to respond to traditional fingerings and produce the sounds and notes normally associated with these fingerings on traditional instruments. This still is not enough since it would offer very little advantage to the virtuoso. What is further needed is an input device which will respond normally to traditional fingerings and which is also capable of recognizing a second "short-hand" language of largely non-traditional fingerings which can be utilized by the virtuoso to produce a variety of effects, sequences, sounds, etc. which could not be similarly produced in a traditional instrument without great or impossible difficulty.
When music is examined in a theoretical perspective, it is seen to be essentially mathematical in nature, thus making it especially well suited for microprocessors. A microprocess-based instrument which responds identically to a traditional instrument given the same traditional fingerings yet is capable of greatly enhanced performance when given special "short-hand" commands would benefit both the beginner and expert alike. Such an instrument, especially when coupled with special video display devices for real-time feedback of musical note information, would greatly accelerate learning. Skills acquired in the use of this instrument would be easily transferable to traditional instruments and vice versa.
Prior art devices have provided interesting and valuable improvements in the state-of-the-art, but none has satisfied all of the foregoing needs due to the fact that none of the prior art devices could distinguish between the traditional "long-hand" language of traditional fingerings and a second "short-hand" language. Prior art devices which used a traditionally configured keyboard for long-hand traditional fingering and a separate keyboard for complex functions such as automatic chord generation did not offer nearly the same benefits of a single traditionally configured keyboard which could accept and distinguish between both long-hand and short-hand fingerings.